Bright Eyes

Chapter 2

I had half a week left of resting before I began my etiquette class. I was closing up shop (my healing business), when a man came in. It was a particularly cold night, and he was wrapped in a cloak.

“Hello, I was just closing up shop. What do you need?” I asked.

He lifted his arm. There were bandages from his wrist up to his shoulder.

“Oh dear! What happened? I need to know so I can treat your wounds properly.”

“Burns. I was attacked.” He said in a low voice. He shouldered his cloak revealing a thin, linen shirt, leather pants, and fur boots. He was muscular, very much so. He had smooth looking olive colored skin. He also had kind gray eyes, and shaggy copper hair.

“You must be cold.” I said fixing a cup of coffee. I grabbed my aloe plants in the process.

“Thanks.” He said as he sat down.

I pulled off the dirty bandages wrapping his arms. The burns he sustained were infected and terrible. There were blisters that popped and coated the area in pus.

“These are bad.” I muttered. I set the aloe aside, and went to grab disinfectant. Imani had invented a special potion that disinfects the area it’s applied to.

“This will burn.” I said and held down his arm with mine. I poured the potion onto a cloth and rubbed his arm with it. He tense up and made a hissing sound. He gripped the chair and almost broke a piece off of the arm of the chair. “Almost done.”

I continued to cleanse his arm with the disinfectant potion. Once I finished the disinfecting, the infection had gone away and I applied the aloe. I then wrapped it in clean bandages.

“Thanks.” He said rubbing his newly bandaged arm.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Cian. Cian Arlott. Yours?”

“Diana Faustine. I’m princess of Crystal Falls, but don’t tell anyone.” I said with a smile.

“If you're a princess, then why do you live here and not in the castle?”

“It’s a long story. I just recently was chosen to be the heir of the queen, but little did I know I was actually a real princess.”

“Story doesn’t seem that long.” Cian joked.

“Whatever. What brings you to the Crystal Falls Slums?” I asked.

“Well, you revealed yourself, I guess I should too.” He said. “I’m the prince of Ephraim. I ran away and have been traveling since I was about eighteen. It’s been two years. I got caught up in a bad fight with a fire mole in a cave last month. That’s why the burns are so bad. I checked on them the other day and that’s when I decided I needed medical attention. I ran into a farmer who told me about a very gifted healer in the Crystal Falls Slums. That’s what brought me here.”

“Interesting. How come you didn’t go to the court healer?”

“They would have know who I was, and then would have sent me back.”

“Why don’t you want to go back?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t go back. Ephraim is in a state of war. If I go back I will be killed. My family has already been killed. I’ve been looking for someone to help me out and get Ephraim out of rebellious hands.”

“Interesting. Take me with you. I’ll help.”

“What?! I can’t do that you’re just a girl!”